Ryan Gosling Interview

Ryan Gosling Talks Blue Valentine

Quick Bio

Ryan Gosling is riding a surge of creativity and popularity these days, following a couple of quiet years. The rom-com hero -- the one the girls love for his work in The Notebook and Lars and the Real Girl -- is garnering raves for his work in the stripped-down, gritty and Oscar-nominated romantic drama Blue Valentine opposite Michelle Williams.

Gosling says writer-director Derek Cianfrance (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Gosling) made it one of the most unusual and rewarding shoots in his 15-year career, allowing his two stars the chance to actually live the film: Blue Valentine traces the relationship of a couple of kids who marry, have children and start to lose their connection. They change and grow away from each other in tiny increments, then come together in attempts to save their marriage and engage in last-ditch sex.

The film was originally given the dreaded NC-17 rating in the U.S., the kiss of death for a film, as theaters won’t run it. But on appeal -- and the encouragement of Oscar buzz (Williams ended up being nominated) -- the film won an R rating for “strong graphic sexual content, language and a beating.” The film is tragic in a way, but is peppered with occasional moments of connection and happiness that will have a familiar ring anyone who has experienced a turbulent relationship will recognize.

AskMen spoke to Gosling during a rare trip home to Toronto.

Blue Valentine is a realistic and heartbreaking look at love and loss. But there is also joy in the journey. What makes it special, different from other romances?

Ryan Gosling: I think that there is really a constructive core in the film that seems to resonate with a lot of people, and it certainly did with me. It took four or five years to get it made. Four years on my end and 12 years for Derek and five from Michelle, which is not uncommon with filmmakers these days. They had to fund it, and it takes a long time, but it never lost its emotional resonance over the course of time I spent with it. The same feeling I had when I read it remains, you know. And I think most people can relate. It’s a common experience in this film. It’s not a sense of heightened romance.

Derek uses a time-splitting technique to show us where they started and what happened over time. How was that shooting for you, to maintain your chronological emotional bearings?

RG: We shot the part where we’re young and falling in love first. Then we took a month off, and then we shot the end of their story. And Derek fought very hard for that. It’s more expensive to do things that way, especially for a film this small. Derek had to give up a lot of things, including lights and a lighting truck and those kinds of luxuries, in order to have time. The film is a lot about time, the erosion of time, the power of time, and you can’t manufacture that. If you’re making a movie about the effects of time, you kind of have to engage time as the main character. So it took 12 years to make it, and then when we made it, he wasn’t going to chop it up into little pieces and try to fit it into a short time. So we did that by taking a month off. We lived in this house together and made birthday cakes. We made Christmas dinner and wrapped presents, had those days when we fought all day and cleaned the house and got groceries and whatnot. We watched movies and lived in that house as much as we could for that month. So when it came time to shoot, that stuff’s not in the film, but you can feel it in the film and the fabric of the film.

Yes, it's authentic, and the two of you have great chemistry. It feels right as an audience member. You're lucky to have had this unique chance.

RG: I agree this comes along very rarely. Once in a blue moon.

The casting was terrific. You know romantic movies and Michelle knows romantic movies, and you know them in ways that aren't conventional. Did Derek ever say to you in words why he picked you?

RG: No, he didn’t; he never said why. I don’t know! He probably picked me because I looked like him, and he picked Michelle because she’s just the best. She’s so impressive as a person and professionally.

Actors get to inhabit different characters and other places and meet new people on the same creative journey...

RG: I think everybody should act! I would encourage everybody to do one thing, join a theater class or something. It’s so good to take a character that you think is wildly different from who you are, and to try to relate to that person and become that person is very helpful. It’s hard to articulate what you learn, but you can feel the effect of these characters that you play and take with you.

You don't walk away from a character at the end of a movie?

RG: No, it’s like having a relationship as much as you would have with an ex-lover. A bad one, a good one, short ones, long ones, but they’re still there in your heart somewhere. You can’t get rid of that completely.

You haven't made that many movies over the past couple of years. Why?

RG: I don’t want you to get sick of me. Let’s keep it this way! I’d rather have this conversation than “Hey, Ryan, would you stop making so many movies?” Seriously.

Well, don't turn into Daniel Day-Lewis and work every decade.

RG: I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. I could only hope to have his problems.

How do you chill out?

RG: I don’t chill out. I just work. I try not to chill out and relax.

Are you being serious?

RG: Yeah! I just try to stay active. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.

What's next?

RG: I’m working on a film called Drive with Carey Mulligan by the filmmaker that did Bronson, Nicolas Winding Refn. He’s a great guy; he did the pusher trilogy Valhalla Rising. I always wanted to do an anti-film, a genre movie. It falls under that category, but the casting is pretty interesting -- unique. There’s a main bad guy I hang out with. He’s not just that; he’s complicated. Bernie the Knife is a very violent character played by Albert Brooks, which I just think is the best idea I’ve ever heard.